CATCHING FIRE: The ANITA PALLENBERG STORY

 I watched this late last night and what a great profile of Anita it is; great clips and great interviews and the dialogue was extraordinarily honest it seem to me . . .the American voice over reading from her posthumously discovered autobiography was a mistake but hey . . . . . whatcha gonna do, apparently it was Scarlett Johansson? Dreadful sci-fi actress and awful voice but heck . . . . . the content more than made up for it. [Didn’t recognise her at first and found myself always wanting to hear a teutonic or at least European accent to the voice over but I get it] Volker Schlöndorff and Prince ‘Stash' - Stanislas Klossowski de Rola (son of the fine artist Balthus) more than made up for it

Anita at Hyde Park

the deeply flawed and insecure Brian here dressed by Anita

‘pretty, pretty, pretty’ Anita costume shot from Barbarella

The Dark Angel

Barbarella gets to it!

Performance - caused troubles . . . . Michele Breton (to die from heroin OD, Anita and Mick

“I didn’t really fancy Mick but if you are spending all day every day in bed filming things happen"

Beautifully done for the most part and as we thought Keith comes over as lovely, self effacing and deeply in love. 

Bryan not so much! (He beat her up but not when Keith was there!)

Obsessed, possessive and violently insecure and Keith open and bright but unsure what on earth Anita saw in him, which is really rather sweet.

The children were a delight and a revelation and despite the clear deep seriousness affecting lovely Marlon who is, if nothing else, ever his father’s son, the lovely ‘Dandelion' Angela was a revelation and I had never heard her interviewed before. Jake Weber’s account of being children in the chaos was extraordinary 

The story of the loss of the youngest, Tara, from cot death syndrome was heart wrenching. Keith on tour did not break the ’show must go on’  adage and was his way of coping somehow. . . . when we didn’t really know what cot death was Anita blamed herself and was in the depths of screaming torturous despair so that the other children had to be taken away . . . . . . desperately sad and the beginning of the end of the Keef n Anita enclave . . . . . . 

Hyde Park 

Watch it if you can (or haven’t!)

Memo from Turner . . .

back to the working week with a memo from Turner . . . . 

 

THE FILM QUENTIN TARANTINO CALLED: “One of the greatest rock movies of all time” | PERFORMANCE

 

THE FILM QUENTIN TARANTINO CALLED:
 "one of the greatest rock movies of all time"

No stranger to scenes of graphic violence in his own movies, it makes complete sense that Quentin Tarantino would be enamoured with a film that proved to be so contentious that the studio which backed the production initially refused to release it.

Written by Donald Cammell – who co-directed alongside Nicolas Roeg – Performance was initially envisioned as a much more light-hearted and comedically-tinged affair, which Cammell proposed as a starring vehicle for his friend Marlon Brando during the earliest stages of development.

The longer it was worked on, though, the darker it became. With the film featuring one of Mick Jagger’s first major acting performances in a role where he played a reclusive rock star, Warner Bros largely stayed away from Performance under the assumption it would be to the Rolling Stones what A Hard Day’s Night was to The Beatles.

Instead, Cammell and Rogue delved deep into sex, psychology, psychedelia, and drug addiction, which took the studio by shock. Legend claims that during a test screening, the wife of an executive threw up after being completely unprepared for what was about to unfold, causing then-boss Ken Hyman to indefinitely shelve the film and deny it a theatrical release.

That stance ultimately softened, albeit after significant re-editing, with Performance released in the United States in the summer of 1970. Among those instantly won over by its unique charms was a young Tarantino, who called it “one of the best movies that has a two-director team”.

The story follows James Fox’s unruly Chas, who ends up on the run from both his criminal boss and the authorities, which leads him directly into the path of Jagger’s hedonistic musician. Gradually putting their mutual distrust to one side, they each become increasingly fascinated with each other’s lifestyle, altering them on a foundational level forever.

“This film is one of the greatest rock movies of all time, and one of the best films that deals with this period,” Tarantino outlined to Sky Cinema when promoting Performance‘s addition to its line-up of classics. “This is the bad side of the psychedelic 1960s dream.”

Never mind Jagger, Tarantino was completely blown away by Fox, who he describes as giving “my favourite British gangster performance of that type.” It was hugely controversial at the time, to such an extent that the studio flat-out refused to make it available to the general public, but Performance has gone on to become an enduring and influential classic that’s inspired many more auteurs beyond the creator of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

The combination of sex, drugs, and rock and roll has always been an alluring one for obvious reasons, and once Warner Bros overcame its skittishness of seeing the three depicted so outrageously on the big screen, Performance was finally given the run in cinemas that it deserved after a few minor tweaks to prevent any more vomiting incidents

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✍️ Scott Campbell

📸 YouTube

Get Away

Gone Dead Train - Randy Newman and ensemble